Google to block YouTube from the Amazon Fire TV on January 1st, 2018

Amazon and Google have been at odds for years. Their clash has reached a new level today. Google has issued a statement announcing that the company was pulling support for YouTube on the Amazon Echo Show immediately and will pull support for YouTube on Amazon Fire TV devices on January 1st, 2018.

Google’s official statement on the matter is:

“We’ve been trying to reach agreement with Amazon to give consumers access to each other’s products and services. But Amazon doesn’t carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn’t make Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of Nest’s latest products. Given this lack of reciprocity, we are no longer supporting YouTube on Echo Show and Fire TV. We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon.”

Amazon and Apple have since come to an agreement that resulted in the two companies announcing that the Apple TV would be returning to Amazon.com and that a Prime Video app will be released for the Apple TV. Amazon and Google have not come to terms, which recently resulted in YouTube being blocked by Google on the Echo Show.

Google’s complaint about the Echo Show was that it provided a “broken user experience” for YouTube because it stripped away many of the service’s components, like letting users log into their YouTube accounts. Amazon recently addressed Google’s complaint and brought YouTube back to the Echo Show by essentially loading the entire YouTube website on the Echo Show when videos are requested.

It appears now that Google was not apprised of Amazon’s solution for YouTube on the Echo Show, since access to the video service on Amazon’s device has once again been removed by Google. Additionally, Google is upset that Amazon has refused to sell new Nest products, which are made by a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

All of the aforementioned disputes and disagreements have culminated in today’s announcement that YouTube will be blocked on Fire TV devices by Google come next year. An Amazon spokesperson told The Verge “Google is setting a disappointing precedent by selectively blocking customer access to an open website. We hope to resolve this with Google as soon as possible.”

The YouTube app on the Fire TV, much like the Echo Show implementation, is simply a wrapper of the YouTube “leanback” website. This means that Google will essentially be blocking a public facing website from a subset of users based not on how the service is displayed, but how they feel about the device’s manufacturer. That’s quite a disturbing decision. It’s not much different from if Google blocked YouTube for everyone using Firefox to punish Mozilla or Safari to punish Apple.

It may not be evident, but Amazon makes the YouTube app for the Fire TV, so it’s not like Google is deciding to no longer develop software for the Fire TV. That, at least, would be understandable in this circumstance. Instead, Google is literally choosing to put up a wall that blocks access to only people accessing their public website from a specific manufacturer’s device.

113 comments

Sounds like Amazon is to blame. Amazon has around 50% of all eCommerce in countries like the US. The least they could do is allow sellers to sell Google devices. Extremely anti-competitive on Amazon’s part and I don’t blame Google.

Also, I am not sure Apple and Amazon have come to an agreement. I won’t believe that until we see prime video on the Apple TV and its still not there yet.

@ Duder – You serious? Google is just as much if not more of a monopoly as Amazon is. What percentage of search does Google control? Google basically controls my search results, my ads, the news I see, what people are allow to post and say on Youtube, etc….

But as someone else mentioned, I know there is a youtube Kodi addon. Give it a few weeks and someone will create an APK we sideload and get Youtube back on FTV. And it will probably include an ad blocker built-in. So Google can suck on that.

AMAZON can choose whether or not to put the Prime Video app on other companies devices.

YOUTUBE can as well, but if you read the article you’d see YOUTUBE/GOOGLE didn’t do anything to put their app on FireTV. AMAZON made the app to use YOUTUBE’s public website which is also used by Roku, SmartTV’s and others.

Whether AMAZON or GOOGLE carry each others devices is a business decision left up to each company.

What we are talking about here is a company with a public website specifically blocking a competitors devices from accessing said website while others companies like Roku will be allowed.

Hypothetically, what if YouTube blocked access to all Comcast IP addresses because Comcast created a rival video service?

a more apt analogy would be ” what if google blocked all access to all google products and services like youtube and google search and gmail on all devices that do not run anrdoid or chrome OS , if they blocked it on all machines running windows because they did not like some business decision by M$ and made it so you had to have chromebook to access all of their services

Couldn’t agree with you more on the UI, although putting that stupid ad banner at the bottom of the home screen is extremely annoying. Stability probably is more dependent on the manufacturer. I just bought the Shield TV and it is a beast. The only thing that is really annoying is the way they integrated navigation into the apps. I don’t like having to use the ok button to get to FF and RW. Wish I could just push left to right. Kinda wonky. Maybe it will be changed with Oreo, which should drop soon.

Android is just a branch of Linux, which is where the vast majority of the work goes in. Amazon is both a consumer of and contributer to Linux. As is Google. Amazon does not use the Google developed portions of Android, instead consuming and contributing to the upstream AOSP project. App compatibility with Android is not provided by Google either. The language used, Davlik/ART, is a fork of Java which has been legally contentions as it was basically taken from Sun/Oracle without permission.

Google produces very little of what goes into the OS on Amazon devices. There is more Amazon produced code than Google by far, and the Linux base dwarfs both their work.

That is how open source software works, what you contribute upstream can be used by others. Amazon also contributes significantly to Android and Linux development via the same process. It does not come with strings attached, it is not something you get to then hold over other’s heads. It does not leave anyone who consumes those projects in any sort of debt to other contributors. That is not how it works.

I don’t deny that Google contributes a lot to Android and by extension Linux. So does Amazon. That is the nature of Open Source. If they feel they should somehow be owed for it, then they need to build their own and adopt a different license than the GPL.

Wrong. It is amazing how the Google haters spin nonsense. Android is a Linux distribution created entirely by Google by their assembling a group of libraries to create an entirely new Linux kernel. Meaning that it is not based on Debian (as Ubuntu and ChromeOS are) or Red Hat but instead was the same as Google creating their own Debian or Red Hat. Second, using Java for the application layer was an innovation that Android was optimized by Google to do. Before then, virtually no consumer-focused Java application programming was taking place on Linux … mainly just enterprise Java programming for server stuff (which is totally different) as well as open source stuff like OpenOffice from Apache. Why was this? Because there was no consumer market for Linux applications because before Android there was no consumer demand for Linux. Nada. Zip. None. And what little was done in that area was written in C/C++, not Java.

As far as “the upstream AOSP project” … who created AOSP? Google! No Google, no AOSP! Now while Chromium did exist before Google adopted it, AOSP did not.

Dalvik/ART is not a fork of Java. They are virtual machines that Java runs on. Google did not fork Java. If they did, Sun would have sued them, just as they did Microsoft when Microsoft attempted to fork Java. And Google did not take it from Sun/Oracle without permission. Google took a few APIs with Sun’s permission and consent. Sun’s CEO has testified to this under oath in federal court MANY TIMES. Sun went bankrupt, Oracle bought them, and Oracle attempted to retroactively enforce copyrights in a way that Sun – who wanted Java to be as open as possible because the open Internet depended on it – never did or intended. Oracle bought Oracle for Java thinking that it was going to be a huge cash cow only to find out that Sun never intended to monetize Java, and in fact had made monetizing Java impossible, including but not limited to by creating the OpenJDK open source project that everyone could resort to in case someone DID try to start licensing and restricting Java. Now that Oracle sees that they can’t make money off Java, they are slowly trying to abandon it.

Goodness I guess it is OK to be a Google-hating fanboy but at least learn something about technology so you can be good at it. Take a few courses in programming or system administration or something so your trolling can actually be accurate.

YouTube Red is a waste. YouTube quality videos have decreased drastically. Tired of all the unboxing videos with no actual review, videos with horrible music that tell you nothing and endless low quality pet videos.

Hey Mark,
Yea, my reason for saving data is not a mobile one. but AT&T DSL, which sucks, also has a limit on data before they start charging extra. I pay for 6mbs package, most days, I get less than 1mbs. When I call to complain, they state that they do not guarantee any speed rate. The only guarantee they offer is that if you dont pay the bill, they will cut you off!! So, all the MB of ad video’s add up fast. Thats why I liked red. Saves me on data charges, but again, no youtube, no need for red!!

Amazon is against kodi boxes, which is a complete different story. kodi is not in the appstore, but i dont remember an effort from their side to prevent its installation (i do remember amazon blacklisting other pieces of software)

Exactly…… That is what keeps me with Amazon, it is like Apple with user data. Does it sell some? Sure, but they are a lot more trustworthy in how and who they sell it to them Google as it’s not their prime business, Google makes big money from your data like Facebook.

The Fire TV exists for you to use Amazons services and purchase it’s goods, google now exists to mine your data and advertise to you, although gmail is fantastic.

That is garbage. Tons of companies fork Android. Does Google block YouTube on Xiaomi and Huawei phones? I bought the first generation Fire TV. I went through a lot of work to root it, install Google Play services on it and a custom launcher on it – because unlike Google, Amazon makes it extremely difficult to find apps installed by alternative app stores – and then Amazon pushes an update that wipes it all. I reinstall everything, and then Amazon pushes another update that breaks it so the sideloaded apps would keep crashing or wouldn’t launch at all, and wouldn’t update.

Amazon gave up on this foolishness with Kindle tablets, but only because they knew that virtually no one would buy the things if it weren’t for the ability to side load Google Play. But with the set top box thing they have more control because Android doesn’t have anywhere near the market share with set top boxes that they do with phones and tablets. Amazon’s blocking Google apps, refusing to support Chromecast and refusing to let ANYONE – even third parties – sell the Chromecast or Nexus Player is exactly what they would do to Android phones and tablets if they could.

I am now shifting my hardware thoughts to third party devices. These Wars are getting tiring. First Amazon on Apple TV, now Google on Fire TV, missing Apps no matter which device one picks, and not too mention all the issues with mirroring different devices. Was considering updating my Fire TV, but now will consider other options. Really needs to stop!

I wish these companies could all get along. So we can get full compatibility with our devices without having a device from each company. To be honest if it wasn’t for Kodi. I would have a Roku device. They seem to have the highest compatibility with all the services since they don’t have any services that conflict with them. Amazon better tread carefully. Because if Google ever wises up it brings out cheaper more competitive devices that run off of AndroidTV. Other than Prime video there will be no reason to buy a FTV.

We need a good guide to sideload youtube and google play services for the fire tv 3. The old guide that wasmadefor the google play music still works if you sideload an older version of youtube for android tv but since ATV3 runs Android OS 6, i cant get the sign on screen to come up on the google play store part. That would solve the problem for all of us and we would get 60fps instead of 30 by default with the original.

what a pain, I now have a AFTV for every TV in my house. All videos my son watches are on youtube. I was going to upgrade my Fire TV hardware this year too, but not if I loose youtube. I have thousands of $ in Amazon videos from my family buying them when I am out of town, they love fireTV, but we need youtube too. Amazon, fix this mess

You can also buy and rent Amazon videos using a Roku. The only reason why I don’t use Roku myself is because I can’t/won’t give up Chromecast. You do realize that Fire TV could easily support Chromecast … it is a simple Google Cast Receiver app that doesn’t even require Google Play Services to work. There are actually third party apps that do the exact same thing … reverse engineered ripoffs of Google Cast Receiver – that are in the Amazon Store. Amazon doesn’t support it simply because they are being petty. And they still don’t despite the fact that they have pulled support for their (laggy and horrible) Miracast screen mirroring.

will the release of Amazon Silk browser to fire tv allow us to continue to watch youtube? or will they block t somehow by our device type (how would thy know)? will youtube be blocked on the Amazon fire tablets as well?

Ridiculous spats. However, at the end of the day for most people the software will be more important than the software. I use my aftv half the time for youtube vid and half the time for Prime video and very seldom for kodi. However, I have no problem dropping aftv and go with Roku if the issue isnt fixed. Just imagine if FB says they wont support Iphone or Android, I would switch platform and ditch the platform that doesnt have FB.

Dear google, GFYS, first off. That was a really low move. All you literally did was sour future business possibilities.
Dear Amazon, you sold me a fire stick telling me that I’d have YouTube. I bought it. You better make sure I keep what I paid for.

To have access to Amazon Prime Apple and Google wanted a 30% cut of any transactions through the app, which would mean wiping out any profit for Amazon. That’s not ‘provocation’, it’s called business sense.

Amazon is a storefront. You can’t force a store to carry your product. Is it a bit of a dick move for Amazon not to carry a competitors products? Sure, but they’re well within their rights to carry whatever they want!

Google on the other hand, has decided to actively block all of the users of Amazon’s streaming products from the YouTube website. This is no different than if Google one day decides it doesn’t want people watching YouTube through Firefox. A website that is open for anyone to view for free, is now blocking a very select userbase.

So yes, Google is indeed the bad guy here, and they should be embarrassed for stooping to this level to try and get their products into Amazon’s storefront!

As I stated above, lots of people use AOSP. Yet Amazon is the only company that produces AOSP hardware that Google blocks YouTube from. Google is doing this because Amazon won’t sell Nexus Player, Chromecast, Google Home and Nest devices, which really hurts Google’s attempts to become a serious player in hardware alongside Apple, Samsung and, oh yeah, Amazon.

And BTW those third party YouTube apps are going to be soon blocked also.

Last time I checked, the Google Store isn’t selling the Amazon Fire devices. However, Amazon does sell a number of devices (smart TVs) that give access to YouTube. As for having a direct competitor’s hardware on their website, the same goes for Roku & Apple not selling Google Chromecast or Amazon Fire products. Amazon sells the Roku streamers, but they have for years. I understand Google wants to sell its ecosystem and products, but Amazon doesn’t have to support them.

Feels like a cold war just got hot. I suspect they’ll be a sideloaded app that restores YouTube access on or before January 1st- or Amazon may even allow clones in their app store.

I wonder if all the apps the currently depend on YouTube streams will be affected? I know there are apps for like cartoons and classic movies and even fireplaces / fireworks / landscapes that just link to specific youtube videos.

I believe the regular youtube app, like most Google apps, require various Google framework APKs that aren’t available or don’t work on the Fire TV. It may be possible but I know it requires more than just the YouTube apk file if it is. I think the problem comes in with the code to login.

I think this is like two kids fighting. Nobody will win with this decision. Ultimately, people are getting sick of Google’s trying to rule the world. And youtube, if they are going to continue to exist needs to work on all platforms, otherwise someone else will come out with a better video platform. I am getting sick of all of the back biting and horse hockey.America has too many problems as it is without two insanenely rich companies fighting with each other. Otherwise, everybody is going to suffer and if google thinks they will still reign when they do this, they might be in for a big shock and lose their lead, so suck it up and figure this thing out! This is just stupid! As a customer, all of us are paying money for internet television services. We should not have to deal with this unprofessional arguing!

“And youtube, if they are going to continue to exist needs to work on all platforms, otherwise someone else will come out with a better video platform.”

Ha. YouTube works just fine on 1 billion iOS devices, 2 billion Android devices, every single other smart TV/set top box platform as well as every device that is capable of supporting a modern browser (which includes the 2 billion Windows devices). So losing 10-15 million (maybe) Fire TV owners won’t make a dent. Especially if even a fraction of those 25 million go out and get an Android TV box instead. To put it another way … Google would gain more from 1 million people switching out their Fire TV for a Shield TV, Nexus Player or Mi Box than they would lose from having the other 24 million abandon YouTube entirely. (Except that they won’t abandon YouTube entirely will they? They will still watch it on their iPhones, Kindle tablets, iPads and MacBooks.)

Basically Amazon has no leverage here … and Amazon knows it. Which is why they are resorting to claiming that Google’s actions somehow constitute a violation of net neutrality (it doesn’t). All Amazon has to do in order to get YouTube back is allow third parties to sell Google hardware through their site. That is literally ALL THEY HAVE TO DO. Yet this is Google trying to rule the world somehow …

Amazon needs to start respecting Google just a little bit more. Android is their operating system and Amazon is building on Google’s back with Fire TV and Echo. Amazon doesn’t have to go as far as to license Play Services…but they do need to start selling Google’s products like Home, Nest, Chromecast and even Android TV’s beyond just the Nvidia Shield. They also need to get Google Cast implemented into Amazon Prime Movies and Audible just like they recently did with Amazon Music. Also? Releasing Amazon Prime Video generally to the Google Play Store for Android TV, without needing OEM agreements, would help too.

Android is an open source operating system that is a branch of Linux, a project that existed nearly a decade before Google did. Google has their own fork of Android, of which they contribute some of their work back to the AOSP. FireOS is another fork of Android, which also contributes work back to AOSP.

I am not aware of what ‘respect’ is owed here. Google does not make their services available on FireOS, why should Amazon go out of their way to accommodate Google?

I’ll point the finger of blame here to Amazon. It’s not just refusing to carry google products, it’s also that Amazon actively blocks their content from streaming on other devices.

When the Amazon Prime Video App was released for Sony Android TVs and the Nvidia Shield, both APKs could be sideloaded and ran perfectly on other Google Android TV devices like the Nexus Player and the Shield. Amazon actively blocked both devices from being able to play video from those devices afterward. Likewise they started sending out nasty letters to sites hosting the APKs and sites hosting a modified APK that allows Prime Video on those devices.

Bottom line is that Amazon has actively blocked their video content from being played on Google devices, so Google can’t really be faulted for blocking their content on Amazon devices.

May not be co-incidental so that the Silk browser just launched, although not available in the UK yet.

Wonder if Google are looking at device fingerprinting to identify the originating device? If so, maybe the Kodi plugin solution will bypass fingerprinting.

If not, something like the following .apk could replace the Amazon Fire TV app:https://smartyoutubetv.github.io/en/
At work now, haven’t tried sideloading onto my Gen1 Fire TV, hope to try this evening.

I’ve e tried this app on my Fire Stick 2 and it works just as good as the app from Amazon.

The big advantage is that it supports log in with your account. If you sideload the official Youtube app from Tablet or Android TV, login won’t work because of the missing Google services. So you would have to sideload them too. This app works without it.

It’s also availablefrom Aptoide Store, if you prefer installing this way:

Oh man. Does this also affect my fire tv sticks? Or does this affect my various Kindles?

I use Youtube on my Kindle fire way more than my fire tv stick so I’d be super bummed about that if it gets blocked. But I have the google framework and official youtube app installed so maybe I’m good?

I don’t like when companies fight. It makes me feel like my parents are getting divorced.

I don’t use youtube much on the show i use mine more for playing music from Amazon and SiriusXM, an Apple TV is my main streamer and so far Goole is playing with apple but i can see that changing as well

Google went through this same strong arm tactic with ROKU several years ago. during that battle Google complained that the ROKU platform didn’t allow for commercial advertising before the videos played costing Google revenue, it literally took them years to reach a resolution. This sound like history repeating itself (though for slightly different reasons but both involved $$$).

I’ll have to side with Amazon on this one.

There are MANY workarounds to get YouTube on any device, its not that complicated, there will be no winners with this.

Well, this happened about 6 weeks ago, when Google up and cut off Echo Show. Stated it didnt meat the guidelines. At the time, they wouldnt even tell Amazon what was wrong, just cut it off. During this time is when Amazon stopped the selling of the said product!!.
About a week and half ago, Amazon gave in and added the whole browser public page to the Echo Show to allow it to get youtube back.

One week and this happens.
Today, the Browser page still opens and shows all of the advertisements, but, if you try to play a video, you get a black screen in its place saying not supported. Still get all the add’s though!!!

Google vs Amazon–give the nod to Google. Google vs Amazon and an army of hackers and sideloaders–Amazon will surely prevail. It’s just another juicy opportunity that probably isn’t even illegal. A Fire TV “plus” box that includes YouTube, piece of cake!!

Google is a malignant tumor on the face of the internet , a cancerous monopoly that needs to be Ma Bell’d

Youtube is dying platform anyways , it’s users are getting ever more frustrated by Googles shady and underhanded policies and practices , their censorship , their adpocolypse , their destructive changes to comment and notification systems ,their abuse of their content creators and demonetization
just about everyone is getting fud up with this $hitty little (HUGE) monopoly right about now, they are trying to turn the internet into what they turned cable TV into a commercial cesspool of crap

The average customer of Amazon’s Fire devices is not going to care who is to blame for the removal of YouTube. All they’ll see is an app that they use a lot is no longer available to them and they will jump ship, which is what Google is counting on. Amazon also sold a lot of Fire devices on Black Friday and you’ll have all those customer either complaining or demanding a return when they see the message telling them YouTube will be discontinued in January.

Amazon are in a corner right now and they need to make some sort of deal with Google that will restore access to YouTube because let’s face it, a device that doesn’t have YouTube does not remain a popular device for long.

I myself left Amazon after they never stopped with the home screen ads and then even began displaying ads before Prime movies and shows. Not to mention their UI which displayed my purchased videos in a single row with movies and shows jumbled together in order of purchase as opposed to A-Z.

Customers would be better of with a Roku or if they can afford it or want access to iTunes then an Apple TV, which now also has the Prime Video app.

great suggestions thank you. i basically just watch youtube and funimation. i think i will get a roku and now i can have an extra black remote i can’t see / find. lolol they need to come out with a senior edition big buttons, neon remote and ease of use number 1 priority.

Google it’s decisions like this that can ruin your company. You start blocking consumers in this way and guess what? Maybe some other video company will use this event to get a foothold on your market share. There ARE other video channels out there.

This will easily drive me to Roku, Shield or gasp, apple tv. Youtube is probably an app i use more than any other. So if i’ll either find a bypass but eventually, this will be a deciding factor on what device i buy next and I was very much waiting for that amazon cube device. That kinda is out the window now.

I bought the Amazon Fire Box in order to watch YOUTUBE on my big screen TV. Now you tell me that Google and Amazon can’t reach an agreement? I am so disgusted with Google and Amazon. I am a long time Prime member of Amazon. I have always had major issues with Google. I am disgusted in both companies. I spent $100+ dollars for the Fire Box and now, I think, I will buy a Roku and let the two companies continue to fight. I don’t know at this point if I will continue my Prime membership.

Google is one of the world’s most anti-competitive companies and one of the top violators of user privacy. This is all about trying to diminish a competitor of Google’s Chromecast. Google owns the search engine space and Google’s YouTube owns the streaming video space for free content. I frankly don’t care that YouTube is coming off of Fire TV, because the YouTube app on the Fire TV platform is absolutely horrible and can’t sync audio to video to save its life.